The Writer’s Guild of America Nominates ‘Logan’ for Best Adapted Screenplay

Awards seasons is underway with new nominations and awards ceremonies flying at us fast and furious. Today brings the Writer’s Guild of America’s nominees, which has a few interesting surprises. This marks the second year in a row the group favored a Fox superhero title; last year Deadpool snuck its head into the WGA noms, and this year it’s Logan‘s turn.

James Mangold’s X-Men movie, co-written by Mangold, Scott Frank, and Michael Green, earned a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Other nominees for scripts adapted from previous works include Call Me By Your Name, The Disaster Artist, Molly’s Game, and Mudbound. The Logan nomination isn’t all that surprising, even less so than Deadpool; Mangold’s R-rated film brought a maturity and emotional poignancy that we rarely, if ever, see in the superhero genre. Another thing of note is Dee Rees’ Mudbound, suggesting that Netflix may be looking at their first Oscar nomination for a feature narrative film – they’ve previously only made it to the awards with docs. But more on the Oscars in a moment.

The WGA did serve up one big surprise in their original screenplay nominations: Steven Spielberg’s The Post, co-written by Liz Hannah and Josh Singer, was nowhere to be seen, making this the second guild it’s been pushed out of following the SAG noms. (It did manage to nab a Globe nomination, but so far things are looking questionable for it’s Oscar chances.) While The Post was pushed out, Steven Rogers’ script for I, Tonya, the most unexpected of the bunch, squeezed in. Other nominees included The Big Sick, Get Out, Lady Bird, and The Shape of Water. You may have noticed a couple other big films missing from that list, like Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Darkest Hour; both were deemed ineligible under the guild’s rules, but the former will certainly get some Academy love.

So what do the WGA nominations mean for the Oscars? Well, the two don’t always sync up perfect. For the past two years the WGA nominated three out of the five screenplays in both categories that went on to compete at the Oscars. But what’s most interesting about the screenplay race this year is how jam-packed the Original category is; almost every major film competing in the Best Picture race (based on predictions) has an original screenplay, while the only a few buzzy titles are based on previous texts, including Call Me By Your Name and Mudbound. That leaves some room open for the adapted category; if Logan doesn’t woo the Academy as much as the WGA, could that make space for The Beguiled to sneak in? Maybe Victoria & Abdul or Wonder? It’s hard to say at this point, but keep your eye out as award season progresses.

In other TV-related news, those still bitter over the endless-snubbing of HBO’s The Leftovers (not me, definitely not me) will find some relief today. The WGA nominated the series finale, “The Book of Nora” for Best Episodic Drama. See the full list of film, TV and documentary nominees over at the WGA site. The guild will announce their winners on February 11.